Biblio

Cyber-physical systems connect the physical world and the information world by sensors and actuators. These sensors are usually small embedded systems which have many limitations on wireless communication, computing and storage. This paper proposes a lightweight coding method for secure and reliable transmission over a wireless communication links in cyber-physical systems. The reliability of transmission is provided by forward error correction. And to ensure the confidentiality, we utilize different encryption matrices at each time of coding which are generated by the sequence number of packets. So replay attacks and other cyber threats can be resisted simultaneously. The issues of the prior reliable transmission protocols and secure communication protocols in wireless networks of a cyber-physical system are reduced, such as large protocol overhead, high interaction delay and large computation cost.

With the development of cyber threats on the Internet, the number of malware, especially unknown malware, is also dramatically increasing. Since all of malware cannot be analyzed by analysts, it is very important to find out new malware that should be analyzed by them. In order to cope with this issue, the existing approaches focused on malware classification using static or dynamic analysis results of malware. However, the static and the dynamic analyses themselves are also too costly and not easy to build the isolated, secure and Internet-like analysis environments such as sandbox. In this paper, we propose a lightweight malware classification method based on detection results of anti-virus software. Since the proposed method can reduce the volume of malware that should be analyzed by analysts, it can be used as a preprocess for in-depth analysis of malware. The experimental showed that the proposed method succeeded in classification of 1,000 malware samples into 187 unique groups. This means that 81% of the original malware samples do not need to analyze by analysts.

Cybersecurity is one of critical issues in modern military operations. In cyber operations, security professionals depend on various information and security systems to mitigate cyber threats through enhanced cyber situational awareness. Cyber situational awareness can give decision makers mission completeness and providing appropriate timely decision support for proactive response. The crucial information for cyber situational awareness can be collected at network boundaries through deep packet inspection with security systems. Regular expression is regarded as a practical method for deep packet inspection that is considering a next generation intrusion detection and prevention, however, it is not commonly used by the reason of its resource intensive characteristics. In this paper, we describe our effort and achievement on regular expression processing capability in real time and an evaluation method with experimental result.

IT system risk assessments are indispensable due to increasing cyber threats within our ever-growing IT systems. Moreover, laws and regulations urge organizations to conduct risk assessments regularly. Even though there exist several risk management frameworks and methodologies, they are in general high level, not defining the risk metrics, risk metrics values and the detailed risk assessment formulas for different risk views. To address this need, we define a novel risk assessment methodology specific to IT systems. Our model is quantitative, both asset and vulnerability centric and defines low and high level risk metrics. High level risk metrics are defined in two general categories; base and attack graph-based. In our paper, we provide a detailed explanation of formulations in each category and make our implemented software publicly available for those who are interested in applying the proposed methodology to their IT systems.

In this paper, we review big data characteristics and security challenges in the cloud and visit different cloud domains and security regulations. We propose using integrated auditing for secure data storage and transaction logs, real-time compliance and security monitoring, regulatory compliance, data environment, identity and access management, infrastructure auditing, availability, privacy, legality, cyber threats, and granular auditing to achieve big data security. We apply a stochastic process model to conduct security analyses in availability and mean time to security failure. Potential future works are also discussed.

Advanced Persistent Threats (APTs) are a new breed of internet based smart threats, which can go undetected with the existing state of-the-art internet traffic monitoring and protection systems. With the evolution of internet and cloud computing, a new generation of smart APT attacks has also evolved and signature based threat detection systems are proving to be futile and insufficient. One of the essential strategies in detecting APTs is to continuously monitor and analyze various features of a TCP/IP connection, such as the number of transferred packets, the total count of the bytes exchanged, the duration of the TCP/IP connections, and details of the number of packet flows. The current threat detection approaches make extensive use of machine learning algorithms that utilize statistical and behavioral knowledge of the traffic. However, the performance of these algorithms is far from satisfactory in terms of reducing false negatives and false positives simultaneously. Mostly, current algorithms focus on reducing false positives, only. This paper presents a fractal based anomaly classification mechanism, with the goal of reducing both false positives and false negatives, simultaneously. A comparison of the proposed fractal based method with a traditional Euclidean based machine learning algorithm (k-NN) shows that the proposed method significantly outperforms the traditional approach by reducing false positive and false negative rates, simultaneously, while improving the overall classification rates.

In last twenty years, use of internet applications, web hacking activities have exaggerated speedily. Organizations facing very significant challenges in securing their web applications from rising cyber threats, as compromise with the protection issues don't seem to be reasonable. Vulnerability Assessment and Penetration Testing (VAPT) techniques help them to go looking out security loopholes. These security loopholes could also be utilized by attackers to launch attacks on technical assets. Thus it is necessary ascertain these vulnerabilities and install security patches. VAPT helps organization to determine whether their security arrangements are working properly. This paper aims to elucidate overview and various techniques used in vulnerability assessment and penetration testing (VAPT). Also focuses on making cyber security awareness and its importance at various level of an organization for adoption of required up to date security measures by the organization to stay protected from various cyber-attacks.

The development of future cyber terrorism scenarios is a key component in building a more comprehensive understanding of cyber threats that are likely to emerge in the near-to mid-term future. While developing concepts of likely new, emerging digital technologies is an important part of this process, this article suggests that understanding the psychological and social forces involved in cyber terrorism is also a key component in the analysis and that the synergy of these two dimensions may produce more accurate and detailed future cyber threat scenarios than either analytical element alone.

Information and Communications Technologies (ICTs), especially the Internet, have become a key enabler for government organisations, businesses and individuals. With increasing growth in the adoption and use of ICT devices such as smart phones, personal computers and the Internet, Cybersecurity is one of the key concerns facing modern organisations in both developed and developing countries. This paper presents an overview of cybersecurity challenges in Bhutan, within the context that the nation is emerging as an ICT developing country. This study examines the cybersecurity incidents reported both in national media and government reports, identification and analysis of different types of cyber threats, understanding of the characteristics and motives behind cyber-attacks, and their frequency of occurrence since 1999. A discussion on an ongoing research study to investigate cybersecurity management and practices for Bhutan's government organisations is also highlighted.

Information on cyber incidents and threats are currently collected and processed with a strong technical focus. Threat and vulnerability information alone are not a solid base for effective, affordable or actionable security advice for decision makers. They need more than a small technical cut of a bigger situational picture to combat and not only to mitigate the cyber threat. We first give a short overview over the related work that can be found in the literature. We found that the approaches mostly analysed “what” has been done, instead of looking more generically beyond the technical aspects for the tactics, techniques and procedures to identify the “how” it was done, by whom and why. We examine then, what information categories and data already exist to answer the question for an adversary's capabilities and objectives. As traditional intelligence tries to serve a better understanding of adversaries' capabilities, actions, and intent, the same is feasible in the cyber space with cyber intelligence. Thus, we identify information sources in the military and civil environment, before we propose to link that traditional information with the technical data for a better situational picture. We give examples of information that can be collected from traditional intelligence for correlation with technical data. Thus, the same intelligence operational picture for the cyber sphere could be developed like the one that is traditionally fed from conventional intelligence disciplines. Finally we propose a way of including intelligence processing in cyber analysis. We finally outline requirements that are key for a successful exchange of information and intelligence between military/civil information providers.